and for that, we turn to daniel gross, economics editor and writer for yahoo finance. and diane swonk, chief economist at mesirow financial, based in chicago. let me begin with diane swonk. fill out this report for us, this picture for us. what are the numbers behind the numbers? >> well, it really was a dismal report. what we saw was a return of something that had been absent for a bit. and that was the gap between public and private sector employment. we had sort of seen the state and local sector, many people thought the cuts were behind them, and they wouldn't be the headwind that they were last year at this time when many teachers were being laid off. well, in this report we saw teachers again being laid off that counted for more than half of all the layoffs in the public sector were teachers at both the state level and local level. then we started to see postal workers disappear at the federal level. so the private sector was sort of carrying the economy in the past. and then we had seen finally the public sector headwinds begin to abatement that now has reversed